


never growing up

by canadino



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadino/pseuds/canadino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back then, his mother told him a story of a woodland boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never growing up

When Akashi was three, he’d visit his mother’s bedside and stare up starry-eyed at her as she told him some children’s stories of her youth. His favorite was of a woodland boy who dressed in leaves and vines and befriended indians and fairies. He had a troop of boyish friends, whereas Akashi had none because his father did not want him badly influenced at such a young age. The woodland boy had adventures with sword-fighting pirates and didn’t have to go home and didn’t have to grow up. “He didn’t have any parents, you see,” his mother said, her voice soft. Akashi had never heard her raise her voice; he didn’t think she could. Mothers were weak against loud sounds - his father always scolded him if he shouted or made a fuss in or near his mother’s room. The man in glasses who visited often said she was tired, so he ought to be a good boy and let his mother rest. “Because he didn’t have a mother or a father, he did as he pleased.”

“I want that,” Akashi insisted, old enough to know he did not want to follow his father to wear stuffy ties and itchy white shirts. He was already tired of lessons from morning to evening and wanted to slouch when he wanted to and complain if he wasn’t happy. 

“You don’t want your mother?”

“I do,” he insisted, holding her tight. She was so thin and frail with each hug he gave her now. He wondered if he was hugging his mother away. “And maybe father too. But no more lessons and no more proper manners. They’re boring.”

“I’ll speak to your father about it,” she assured him, smiling as widely as she could. “He should let you be a boy once in a while.” And then she told him of a time when the woodland boy lost his shadow and had a young girl sew it back on for him. In thanks, he took her and her brothers to his home and played until it was time to go home. Try as he might, Akashi could not remember the boy’s Anglicized name. His father would be upset that his son could not retain even the simplest of facts. His mother never told.

[=]

Three years later, he lost his mother and her stories. The way she told them, Akashi could see the boy soar through the doorway and laugh with them, wiggling his nose and letting his fairies dart between his fingers. But now she was gone, he could no longer summon such images from memory and sat quietly during the funeral. His father wouldn’t have let him cry anyway.

“Your mother is gone now,” his father told him. “There’s no more time for stories and frivolity. Forget about them. Go to school and be a good son.”

“Yes, father,” Akashi said, and quietly to himself, whispered the end to the story his mother insisted had no end. 

[=]

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Midorima said.

“Do what?”

“Be an adult all the time. I know we’re in our twenties now and technically should be adults, but you don’t have to. Not all the time, at least.” Now Akashi was older and understood that his father loved him, but also spited him, a little. His mother’s deteriorating health started from complications from his birth, but it was no one’s fault. His father was an overachiever, a workaholic. Parental influences imprint on the offspring. 

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“You know,” Midorima said, never the most eloquent. His shoulder bumped into Akashi’s and while Akashi did not move his shoulder, he would never admit he liked it. “You can be selfish if you want. Sometimes. You can think about yourself and what you want instead of what you should want.” Akashi knew Midorima was thinking quietly to himself that there was already a rare exception, such a thing that could bind them together intimately, but it was what it was - a rare exception, a glimpse of his real face. 

“It wouldn’t be right.”

“Who says? You can be selfish around me, Akashi.”

Akashi’s breath hitched. His father’s voice echoed in his ears, all the lessons about swallowing one’s pride and putting off on immediate feelings and studying others. He barely remembered what his mother’s voice sounded like, though he could never forget her face. To be selfish was against his nature. “Try it,” Midorima coaxed, gently, not condescending, not forcefully. “No one but I will know.”

Only children did silly things like demand one way or another. He was no longer a child. He wasn’t even sure he was ever a child, really. He knew of the distinction between being commanding and being selfish. “I want,” he said, and hesitated. Midorima’s eyes focused encouragingly. 

“I want you to hold my hand. Now, and tightly.”

Midorima’s hand graced over his, warm and enveloping, and grasped his. His fingers, no longer bandaged, warmed the nooks of his hands he wasn’t aware were cold. “Yes, and?”

“And,” Akashi murmured, staring obtusely at a space a distance away. “Hold me. And don’t let go.” Midorima obliged, wrapping his arms around Akashi. There were so many things Akashi wanted as well, to take a car ride out of town, to quit his obligatory hospital visits to his aging father, to find a place with Midorima where he did not need to shoulder the responsibilities he had hoisted over his head since he was barely able to walk. Those would come later. For now, this was enough.


End file.
